South Dublin

by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

  Anyway, she sponsored her for years. I remember her trying to interest me in one or two of her letters – ‘Oh my God, Ross, they've set up a small farming project, providing cassava and yams to storving children’ – but obviously I'd fock-all interest.

  ‘Sorcha's actually in the States,’ I go. ‘She's gone for pretty much a year…’

  This look of, like, disappointment crosses her face, then for some reason I look down at her feet. She's got a suitcase with her.

  It all of a sudden hits me that she has nowhere else to go.

  ‘Why don't you come in,’ I suddenly find myself going. And I don't know why because I don't think I want to score her.

  I think I'm thinking, what would Sorcha do? She's been sponsoring her for ten years – I presume she'd take her in, at least until she got sorted with a hotel.

  So I bring her in. I even carry her focking case for her. ‘I'm Ross,’ I go, doing the whole handshake thing.

  She's like, ‘Yes, I recognize you from the pictures Soarchah sent to me.’

  I ask her if she fancies a cup of coffee. I was going to fire up the Nespresso. ‘That would be nice,’ she goes. ‘You are very kind. Not like Soarchah described you to me…’

  Whoa, that rocks me back on my heels. I'm like, ‘Really? What exactly did she say?’

  ‘She said you slept with her sister and her friend before your wedding. She said you photocopied her notes for her special history topic at school and sold them on the inter–net. She said you gave her oral thrush for her eighteenth birthday… ‘Fock – up until that point I was going to ask her to produce her passport, just to prove she was who she said she was?

  I'm like, ‘I'm sure she must have told you one or two of the high points as well,’ but she doesn't answer. She just storts mooching around the kitchen and dining room, looking at shit, going, ‘You have a beautiful home. You are very lucky.’

  ‘Was very lucky,’ I go. ‘Me and Sorcha, we're not actually together any more.’

  ‘No!’ she goes, genuinely horrified. She obviously hasn't written for a few months.

  I'm there, ‘Hey, it's cool. It was, like, mutual?’ then I turn around and pop the capsule in the machine, a wedding present from Oisinn and one of the few good things to come out of our marriage.

  She's like, ‘So – Soarchah is gone to…’

  I'm there, ‘The States. She's gone for a year. You probably should have written.’

  She's standing in front of the contemporary bookshelf, her head cocked to one side, reading the spines of all Sorcha's boxsets.

  ‘What are these?’ she goes.

  I'm like, ‘They're called, like, DVDs? They're pretty much like a CD except they've got, like, movies on them and shit?’

  She gives me the duh-look then.

  ‘I am from Nigeria,’ she goes, ‘not from outer space. What I mean is I have never heard of these movies. Nip Tuck. Dawson's Creek. ER. The OC…’

  I'm there, ‘The thing is they're not actual movies?

  They're, like, all her favourite TV programmes.’

  ‘She watches all of these?’

  I'm there, ‘She does in her Swiss. If we ever experience, like, a nuclear winter, she might get around to it. Yeah, no, the thing with boxsets is you don't buy them to watch, you buy them to own?’

  She suddenly gets, I don't know, frantic. ‘I must watch them all,’ she goes. ‘I have so much to learn about Ireland.’

  I'm like, ‘Here, have one of these cookies. The ginger comes from some place in, I don't know, India. They pay the fockers a fortune for it as well…’

  She takes one.

  I go, ‘Make yourself at home, Immaculata,’ four words I didn't expect to be saying today. Sorry, five. ‘You can stay here as long as you like.’

  She gives me the most incredible smile then. ‘You are a very nice man,’ she goes.

  I'm like, ‘Separate beds, though.’

  ‘Of course,’ she goes, looking slightly confused. ‘I have a boyfriend.’

  I'm there, ‘Believe me – I've been with a lot of birds who said that.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Other contributions gratefully received from Teige MacCarthy-Morrow, Katie Ingle, Gillian Coffey, John O'Connor, Paddy Cahill, Paul Wallace, Alan Kelly, Ken Finlay, Tom Doorley and Dave McCann.

  PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS

  Page 14 © T Kruesselmann/zefa/Corbis; Page 31 © Kyran O’Brien; Page 39 © David Rogers/Getty Images; Page 41 © Mark Molloy (Courtesy of Liz O'Donnell); Page 60 © Adamski-Peek Lori/Photolibrary; Page 93 © Heineken; Page 101 © Tobbe/zefa/Corbis; Page 111 © Mark McCall; Page 122 © Charlotte Nation/Getty Images; Page 140 © Digital Vision/Getty Images; Page 151 © Jack Hollingsworth/Photodisc Green/Getty Images; Page 165 © Jack Hollingsworth/ Photodisc Green/Getty Images; pages 166-7 © Adrianna Williams/zefa/Corbis; Page 171 © Simon Fraser/Alamy; Page 180 © Wayne Griffiths/ABPL/ Photolibrary; Page 183 © PlainPictures/Photolibrary; Page 199 © Jon Beretta/Rex Features; Page 208 © mediacolor's/Alamy; Page 224 © Süren Stache/dpa/ Corbis; Page 246 © Winfried Wisniewski/zefa/Corbis; Page 255 © Hulton Archive/Getty Images; Page 270 © Burke/Triolo/Photolibrary; Page 279 © Judith Wagner/zefa/Corbis; Page 285 © Stuart Westmoreland/Getty Images; Page 301 © Walter Lockwood/Corbis; Page 307 © Steve Taylor/The Image Bank/Getty Images; Page 317 © Virgo Productions/zefa/Corbis. All other photography by Roderick Field.

  Maps, hand-lettering and illustrations by Dominic Trevett.

  Caricature illustrations by Alan Clarke.